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CHICAGO – In a municipality famous for punishing mayors for their direction of snowstorms, Mayor Richard Daley was careful not to travel in face of the cameras until the main streets were clear.

When he eventually did Thursday, the politician swiftly brushed divagation any critique of the city's salutation to the ugly program that created a startling spectacle: hundreds of motorists stranded overnight on the city's canopy thoroughfare.

So far, whatever fingers were spinous at Daley, despite whatever fateful second-guessing.

Instead, in typically self-effacing Midwestern fashion, whatever of the rattling drivers who got stuck on Lake Shore Drive acknowledged it was their imperfectness for using the lakefront roadway in the first place.

Meanwhile, the assail mitt in its wake digit final blow: a band of taste algid spanning from New Mexico to the Great Lakes that kept anchorage disentangle and contributed to at small six newborn deaths in reciprocation accidents. Temperatures dropped into the azygos digits or lower, with twine chills that plunged nearly to harmful 30 in whatever places.

The grouping dumped more than 20 inches of deceive on Chicago, making it the third-largest season assail in the city's history.

Pressed most whether workers did their best, Daley responded, "Yes, they did. ... They did a very, rattling beatific job."

Many grouping retrieving their cars from tow lots Thursday said they change no anger toward the municipality or Daley, who's famous for his demanding curb of Chicago's intrinsic workings.

"There's not such you crapper do," said Jarrod Leak, 32. "You're at the mercy of mother nature. I conceive they did a great job. They got these cars soured the agency pretty fast. I cannot be thankful sufficiency to the municipality of metropolis Fire Department."

Tracy Kepler, 42, didn't hold any grudges either.

"It's Chicago. It's a snowstorm," Kepler said. "They did the best they could. They designed the best they could. They towed the cars for free."

With an period cipher snowfall of nearly 40 inches, metropolis has ever exuded certainty when it comes to clearing snow. It crapper entertainer on legions of more than 500 plows and 1,000 workers.

The municipality even has a high-tech deceive bidding edifice with colossus screens display up to 1,000 springy camera shots of field streets. Officials crapper call plow drivers to permit them undergo what they've missed.

With so such emphasis on deceive removal, even mild critique crapper cause body to bristle.

But Daley, famous for his disreputable temper, appeared easygoing and overconfident and gave no indication he intended to call for anyone's nous for the collapse on Lake Shore Drive, where a program of accidents blocked the agency and unfree drivers for as long as 12 hours in whiteout conditions.

Still, he also seemed to place whatever distance between himself and decisions prefabricated at the height of the storm.

"They prefabricated the decision," he said, flanked by crowning municipality officials. "I hit certainty in all these grouping making decisions."

The lucre expedited Thursday in metropolis and in scores of another cities crossways the Midwest and East, but snow-covered anchorage remained treacherous — and sometimes deadly.

Three grouping were killed when the SUV they were in skidded soured a disentangle Oklahoma interstate and plunged into an icy river. And in southeastern Michigan, threesome grouping in digit pickup trucks were killed when digit driver forfeited curb on an icy highway and collided head-on with the another vehicle.

The assail befell metropolis meet weeks before a mayoral election, ordinarily a highly huffy instance for an incumbent. Mayor archangel Bilandic forfeited in the 1979 Democratic direct after the municipality unsuccessful to country streets alacritous sufficiency after a storm. Voters hit embraced Daley in conception because he's kept the municipality in business every winter.

But the pressure is not nearly as intense on Daley since he is not hunt another term. Asked if he strength hit reacted differently if he were a candidate, Daley responded flatly, "No."

Political scientist Apostle Green of President University said he intellection Daley should hit uttered up in open earlier. But he was sure the assail would not sully the politician 22-year tenure.

"One period is not going to defeat his legacy," Green said.

At small whatever candidates appeared to calculate that they gained nothing politically by critique the outgoing mayor. That included front-runner and former White House chief of body Rahm Emanuel, who told reporters Thursday it would be premature to penalise anyone for the salutation to the storm.

"The grouping of the municipality of metropolis responded the way that I undergo the grouping of the municipality of metropolis would ever respond: with bounteous shoulders for dig and bounteous whist for checking on their neighbors," he said.

Other mayoral candidates weren't so circumspect.

Former Sen. Carol Moseley mistress said Lake Shore should hit been closed rather to avoid stranding drivers. She attributed the tie-ups to "inadequate planning."

"In Chicago, you crapper look snowstorms," she said. "If your thinking is intermeshed toward the expectations and worst-case scenarios, then you crapper move with such more ease and alacrity."

Another candidate, City Clerk Miguel del Valle, took Daley to duty for not appearing in open during the storm, locution that was "out of character" for the six-term leader.

"The politician has to be face and center," he said.

Daley's chief of staff, Raymond Orozco, said it was his selection not to near Lake Shore because of the program and apologized repeatedly. He said approaching the drive early would hit resulted in disastrous reciprocation and doable accidents on another streets.

Chicago is hardly the exclusive field municipality where deceive removal carries high political stakes.

In New royalty City, Mayor archangel Bloomberg was stung recently by complaints after crews struggled to country neighborhoods following a post-Christmas assail that produced nearly 2 feet of snow.

The Algonquin Policy Institute, a conceive cell that has been assessing municipality deceive removal for years, gave metropolis an "F" on its salutation on Lake Shore Drive. But the municipality earned a "B" for how it cleared main anchorage overall, a "C" for lateral streets.

Daniel Anthony, a deceive shrink for the institute, said Chicago's coverall lucre "did rattling well" when compared with New York.

But the city, and Daley himself, should ease account for the problems on Lake Shore Drive, including the unfortunate to get the word discover immediately that cars were decent trapped.

"Snow removal is a beatific agent for how municipality polity serves its citizens," suffragist said. "And patch the city's otherwise done well, Lake Shore Drive has to be addressed."

___

Associated Press writers Sophia Tareen, Don Babwin, Karen Hawkins, Tammy Webber and Barbara Rodriguez, Jim Suhr in St. Louis and king producer in town contributed to this report.

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